The Final summer series event of 2008 took place at The Hawth on Saturday.

Rob Lines (aided by many others) put a lot of work into creating a fun and varied series.

There were a number of innovations this year, including incorporating the SE Sprint champs into the series and having multiple events on a single day.

We all want to learn from the experiences of all the participants (competitors, planners, organisers etc.) which were the most successful aspects of the series, which were less good, what we you would like to see in next years series (and what you wouldn’t!).

Summer 2009 seems a long way off at the moment, but a successful series of events needs early preparation, so the club will have to start thinking about it in earnest soon.

The thoughts of all participants are needed for this, whether you’re novices, old hands, aspiring British team members or consider yourself “local” orienteers.

This forum should provide a good place to publish your ideas, so lets hear them!

Here is a reminder of this years venues and terrain types:
Park-O 1 Lancing Manor - 21.06.08
Urban Park and Woodland, Complex quarry area.

Park-O 2 Dorothy Stringer School and Varndean Campus - 28.06.08
School campus with playing fields and navigation round buildings

Park-O 3 Hove Park - 05.07.08
Well developed Urban park

Park-O 4 Blatchington Mill - 05.07.08
School campus with playing fields and navigation round buildings

Park-O 5 Preston Park - 12.07.08
Well developed Urban park

Park-O 6 Horsham Park - 19.07.08
Well developed Urban park

Park-O 7/8 (SE Sprints) University of Sussex - 30.08.08
Large University Campus (navigation round buildings)

Park-O 9 The Hawth - 13.09.08
Urban Park and Complex woodland

I attended 3 sprints.  2 campus based one’s which led me to a false sense of confidence when it came to saturday. I really wasn’t mentally attuned to be going back into the forest!!! My fault for not paying attention to the writeups.

My only comment would be to find a way to emphasise the differing course types employed to help idiots like me.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed all of them and would like to publicly thank the hard working team who put the programme together : Well Done!

As we have seen with several other SO ventures the Sprint series is starting to become a victim of its own success. No bad thing of course but what started out as an informal run around a park has now become a major series with expected high standards of mapping, planning and organisation. The standard this year was very high and I see no reason why it can’t continue to be so. Perhaps the biggest area for debate is whether to stick to parks or use those wooded areas where the undergrowth is OK. Internationally sprint races use both types of terrain and the most testing mix both in a single race. One problem with using our wooded areas is that these are usually mapped at 1:10000 whereas the sprint standard is becoming 1:4000. Simply blowing up the map is a cheat’s way of converting one into another and really they should be remapped to sprint standard - a lot of work. I only attended sprints 5-9 and felt that but for a few minor niggles all were very good. The level of complexity of the Hawth woodland did mean that the mapping was on the limit of whether or not it was an accurate reflection of the terrain. Fortunately there were enough unambiguous features in there to lead one into the controls provided you maintained concentration.

Once again I really enjoyed the Summer Sprint/Park Series and special thanks to Rob and his team for all their hard work. 

There are just two points that I would like to pick up on:

1 With 3 events either side of 28 June/5 July and 5 July/12 July weeks, if you were on holiday or working away from home for either of the weeks, you missed all 3 events.  Did this seriously affect your overall result?  Should we try to separate a double event from other events in future?

2 There was a reduced Southdowns entry at the SE Sprint event at Sussex University.  Very few of our newer members were present.  Was there any special reason for this?  (Online entry, end of school holidays, time of day, too expensive, unsure whether you were eligible to enter or any other reason?)

I would welcome any comments.

I really enjoyed the 3 sprint races I did and thanks to everyone that was involved in organising the series!

I thought the idea of having 2 on the same day, was an excellent one. Sometimes I feel like I’ve only just warmed up by the time I finish a sprint, therefore being able to go and have another blast is great. It also means if you can only make a few races, you can score twice on the same day.

The reason I personally couldn’t go to more of them was a combination of holidays (O-ringen), half marathons and other running/personal committments.

Regarding the SE sprint champs, this was down to timing. We had plans to go sailing that weekend and if it had been in the morning, Tim & I would have possibly been able to have done both.

I’m looking forward to see what next summer brings!

Thanks SO for this year.
The mapping is getting better - these things take time but vast improvements have been made on last year and moving to Sprint spec ISSSOM is surely the way forward.
I agree with Neil C that what was a low key informal runaround on a blow up 1:10, has now become a beacon of success for clubs to look upon/aspire to, too around the country. I feel that in the summer, with the veg up in the forest, we need to be doing such high profile Leagues - bringing O to the parks and the people. Saxons may well be doing similar (smaller scale I expect) next summer.... However, is it wrong to expect high standards? The events are on small areas and short courses, so it should be relatively easy to get things right?
I think there needs to be a bit more controlling of courses, in the planning and on the day. I know Rob L has done a lot on this but more needs to be done. Things like no. 3 on the Sprint course at the Hawth SSRS 9, put on the wrong path (I assume as the path it should have been on was a bit overgrown and it was put on a path almost hidden by the circle on the overprint) 15 m away, shouldnt happen.
It is all a good learning curve for the club and planners/organisers and such self-analysis and want to strive for improvement is commendable.
Having the events on Runners World is definitely a great move too.
I look forward to next year…

In response to my original comments a source has reported the following directly to me and is happy for me to post their comments on the Forum.

“For the newer or less experienced person the event was structured differently and therefore fear of the unknown puts people off.

a) pre entry is very off putting to new people and often they are not sure they are committed enough to enter in advance so then don’t enter at all.
b) the entry was more expensive, and even more expensive if not pre entering. I know there were facilities but ......
c) Juniors/inexperienced adults were not well catered for. The option was yellow or the proper open mens/womens course. Some juniors/adults would have maybe liked an orange to bridge the gap. Family groups who had been to the park sprints were conspicuous by their absence.
d) the event was spread over a longer period of time which some people may have felt was too long.
e) “I’m not good enough to take part” syndrome because its billed as the SE champs probably put a few off.

Basically I don’t think the SE Champs fitted in with the Sussex sprint league in terms of ethos. SE Champs was a hard core event to find the best in the SE (although medals etc bizzarely went to people outside SE but that’s another story!) Sussex sprint series is competitive at the sharp end but is more about having a go and taking “O” to the masses etc.
All 9 events may have been sprints but SE Champs was aimed at a different market to the series.
I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been included in the series but it was the exception to the fare that park O-ers had been used to so they gave it a miss.

I enjoyed all the sprints, and like the idea of a couple of double-headers.

Improvements? Maybe some controlling but how serious do we want to make it? It is for fun!”

This is very useful feedback - thank you.